Art Kampmeier and Gabriel Roy raise some interesting questions regarding selection, qualification, and evaluation of the safety professional.
Unfortunately, I think they both missed the basic question: What do you want your safety professional to do? That is, what is his output? If you don't have the answer to this question, then you can't select, qualify, or evaluate your personnel. I would expect that the safety professional would be responsible for assuring the safety of products produced by the organization. He may also be responsible for obtaining safety certifications from various third-party safety certification organizations. But, this may not be the case for your organization. I would be curious as to what your organization expects you to do. And, I would be curious as to how your organization evaluates your effectiveness. For example, if you are responsible for the safety of products, then I would suggest that you would or should be measured by the number of injuries caused by the product. Other measures would be the number of injuries ALLEGED as capable of being caused by the product even though an injury did not occur. Yet another measure would be the number of product recalls for safety reasons. The number of production-line shutdowns due to safety problems. For each of these, the goal would be zero. If you are responsible for obtaining third-party safety certification, then I would suggest that you should be measured by having those certifications complete by a planned date. Another measure would be the number of changes required by the third-party. (A GOOD safety professional should be able to submit a product with NO changes required of the product.) Another measure would be the number of variation notices found by third-party production inspectors. If you want your safety professional to advise R&D engineers about ways in which the design can meet the safety standard, then you may require your safety professional to be trained as an engineer. If you want your safety professional to test products and provide feedback, then you may need your safety professional to be trained in testing and report-writing. Etc. The point is, if you know what you want your safety professional to do, then you can establish criteria for selection, qualification, and evaluation. Regards, Rich +===========================================================+ |Richard Nute |Quality Department | |Hewlett-Packard Company |Product Regulations Group | |San Diego Division (SDD) |Tel : 619 655 3329 | |16399 West Bernardo Drive |FAX : 619 655 4979 | |San Diego, California 92127 |e-mail: [email protected] | +===========================================================+
